


bury this heart

by themorninglark



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Bittersweet, Flashbacks, M/M, Nostalgia, Post-Canon, Pro Volleyball Player Kageyama Tobio, Pro Volleyball Player Oikawa Tooru
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:42:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6579838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/themorninglark
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>the first time you saw him,</i><br/>
<i>he didn't leave much of an impression.</i><br/>
</p><p>
In which Kageyama Tobio, a little older (and maybe wiser), tries to pick up the frayed threads of a friendship unravelled.</p>
            </blockquote>





	bury this heart

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is a love letter to _missed opportunities_ , inspired by a patchwork of KuniKage moments and flashbacks.
> 
> Vienna Teng's beautiful song ["Kansas"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKCodew3WZc) was my soundtrack for much of it.

 

 

 

 

It was an afternoon for _ramen_ , and light malt beer, by the counter at an open-air roadside stall somewhere in the heart of Sendai City, and it was an afternoon like many others that had flown by them, slipped from their grasp while Kageyama wasn't looking.

He ordered something spicy, with mushrooms and extra _chashu_ , and Kunimi had _tonkotsu_ , safe and reliable.

They kept it casual, like they always did.

(And Kageyama did not think about _always_ , and all that it meant, about habits, old and new.)

He slurped the rest of his soup with a noisy, unbridled gusto, undiminished from schooldays. He was glad of the _kaedama_ he had ordered. He looked at his watch. At the setting sun. Thought of the hours he had to kill before his next train.

Maybe he would make a stop somewhere. A prayer, for luck - for something more - well…

It couldn't hurt.

Kunimi, setting down his chopsticks delicately, reached into the _edamame_ bowl.

He took his time, prying the green beans out of their pod, one by one, eating them slowly, and when a scribbled bill landed in between them, he did the math in his head with a practised efficiency and they split it right down the middle.

(Like they always did.)

In the fading light of the late summer sky, their shadows were lacquered gold.

 _Thank you for the meal,_ Kunimi murmured as he got to his feet. He picked up his scarf, wrapped it loosely round his neck and gave Kageyama a brief nod.

"Well. Bye, I guess."

"Yeah," said Kageyama.

 _See you._ The words caught in his throat, got stuck like a stray breath, an _inhale_ that was meant to be an _exhale_.

As Kunimi pushed back his wooden chair with a dull _scrape_ , disappeared into the evening and the milling crowds of the city, Kageyama turned another question over in his mind. It closed round his chest like a soft vise.

For a moment, he felt that he might call out.

 

 _Kunimi,  
_ _would you like to -_

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_well, maybe not today._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

In the courtyard of a small shrine on the corner, he stood beneath a zelkova tree, paused, for a moment, to hear a crisp, rhythmic _shuffle_ from behind him, a temple attendant diligently raking leaves across dry ground.

They had fallen in a carpet by his feet, pale brown and dying. The wind stirred. Beneath his careless tread, a stray branch _cracked_ , splintered in his wake.

Soon, it would be winter, and then, another spring.

He hitched his duffel up his shoulder, turned to face forward and headed to the station.

The lucky direction on his  _omikuji_ read:  _southwest_.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He could walk down the streets, look up at the neon lights and trace letters, uncertain, in his mind's eye; he could commit hand signals to memory in the blink of an eyelid, and yet never find the words to say to someone who used to stand with him on the court.

He could let realisations sink in. He was persistent, and stubborn, at least.

He could _try_ his damnedest to pick up the thread of a narrative that started, and went, nowhere in particular, and he could fumble his way towards an ineloquent, repressed truth -

Or at least, a kind of hard-won honesty that was all his own.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _the first time you saw him,  
_ _he didn't leave much of an impression._

   

There were several first years in the volleyball club.

They stood in a row by the net, called out their names and positions as the captain walked down the line, eyed each of them with an appraising glance in his eyes and a curl round the corner of his lips. It danced in and out of sight like a wink, a conspiratorial kind of secret smile.

In the spring of his steps, even the sunlight streaming through the gym windows seemed brighter.

 _He was famous_ , said the awed murmurs. He was the best setter in Miyagi Prefecture. He would take Kitaiichi to the Nationals this year.

So they stood, there, in their orderly fashion, and they waited their brief turn to speak; some squeezed their sweating hands behind their back, some held them by their sides, stiff and ramrod-straight. The boy next to him, just an eyelash taller, held them clasped in front, fingers worrying absently round their own knuckles as he introduced himself, his voice - not quite soft, but not quite memorable, either, not one to stand out in a crowd.

And Kageyama Tobio, surrounded by stars of a different orbit, paid little attention to the shadow by his side, the simmering rustle of the wind in that second. It came, and it passed.

  

 

"I'm Kunimi Akira, class 4, and I'm a wing spiker."

 

  

_in fact, you don't think you even remembered his name then._

 

 

 

 

 

  

Clad in his red and white jacket, wearing it, self-consciously, like a different kind of armour, he hopped off the _shinkansen_ and carved an awkward, angular path into Sendai Station's shuffling crowd. His bag was heavy on his shoulder, his shoes worn, on his feet. He had bought new shoes from Hong Kong. They sat in his backpack because he had not had the time to do up the laces yet in just the way he liked them. He had fallen asleep on the plane. He had not yet grown used to so much air travel.

It was something of a relief to smell the air of Sendai, to feel the solid, tiled ground once again.

The team bus had taken them as far as central Fukushima, down the Tohoku Expressway. It had ridden the tailwinds of victory, past the sprawling green and gold plains of Saitama, Tochigi, and then, in the distance, mountains speckled with tree-bark brown; at times, the crimson blush of azaleas all up the slopes.

He'd rested his head against the windowpane, counted down the minutes to home as he dozed off, in restless fits.

 

 _why don't you move to Tokyo, Kageyama?  
_ _wouldn't it be easier for you to train with the team?_

_Sendai's not that far away._

 

He'd stopped short there, felt the thought dissolve into a feeling he could barely hold in his hands, let alone frame. If he'd been able to answer the perennial question in words, he would have. It wasn't like he was trying to be mysterious or anything.

It really wasn't so complicated. _He_ wasn't so complicated.

He felt eyes on him, still, as he made his way through the station. It was becoming unavoidable. He kept his back straight, his gaze forward, searching for his exit, a path he knew well by now, and he felt a hard-won familiarity settling back into his every footstep, through the roots of a concrete soil he'd breathed and lived and scrapped his way through daily.

It wasn't like that anymore, maybe, but this was where he'd come from -

and like a ghost of _Miyagi past_ , this was where he returned.

He had not intended to chase down his nostalgia. Perhaps it had only been a matter of time.

 _He_ had never been the sort to venture far from home either, after all, nor the sort to fade away into complete obscurity; it was very like him to be found in a place like this, just another very average face in the sea of commuters. Only, he was _taller_ than most.

Taller than him. Barely.

And Kageyama's head turned, a second too late -

He opened his mouth, started to call out a name, and then closed it as Kunimi wove his effortless way past the barriers, towards the platforms on the other side.

He moved like he always did. Languid, unhurried, efficient. Flowing with the current, from _point A_ to _point B_ , in a way that made you wonder if he hadn't been at _point B_ all along. He was fairer than he used to be. Kageyama wondered if he didn't play anymore.

He felt the syllables linger on his lips, bittersweet, and pressed them together into a thin line. Tasted the scent of a springtime in bloom as he walked out into the open air.

 _More sweet than bitter_ , he dared to hope, and clung on to the thought.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_remember when —_

 

 

 

When they first pulled off an A-quick, one that made even Iwaizumi, on the other side of the net, stop and stare in admiration.

When sunset caught up with their practices, and Kageyama watched Kunimi from behind as he left right on time, a lone drop of sweat trickling down the back of his neck.

When they walked away from school, the wires overhead crisscrossing a crimson sky, and other lines, lines drawn taut between them, crackled with another kind of electricity.

When their names tasted kinder in each other's mouths, and they spoke them - not with that heady rush of _camaraderie_ , no, it was never like that between them -

just with the surety that they knew one another.

When the sound of the whistle plucked the same heartstrings in them both, the same note, reverberating solid.

 

 

* * *

 

 

(It had not lasted, any of it -

But it had been real anyway.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Oikawa-san."

"Hmm? Tobio-chan?"

"Do you have Kunimi's number?"

"Kunimi-chan's? Of course I do. Hey, he's living in Sendai now, isn't he? Same as you!"

"Yeah. Can I have his number?"

"Well, that's awfully _direct_! I don't know, what if Kunimi-chan wouldn't _want_ you to have it?"

"…you're right. I didn't think about that. Excuse me."

"Wait, Tobio-chan, for the love of - I was just _joking_! You don't have to take _everything_ so seriously! Here, I'm sending it to you now, okay?"

"Oikawa-san, you don't have to if you really think Kunimi wouldn't want me to - "

"Mmm… I'll give you some life advice free of charge, my adorable _kouhai_ \- "

"Please don't call me that."

" - because I _care_ about your happiness, you know! And Kunimi-chan's too. So: why don't you try _trusting_ him, for a change, and see what happens?"

 

 

* * *

 

 

It was never about that, Kageyama wanted to say -

But that, too, was a half-truth, and more than a half-lie, and there was something about it that added up to more than a hundred percent, he knew, and most of this impossibility was _him_. Kunimi had always stayed, safe, right within the bounds of a tangible reality. It was Kageyama who had tried to push them beyond.

 _It's not about that -  
_ _what if he doesn't trust me?_

 

But as Kageyama stood, a little sullen, by the sidelines, and watched Oikawa set for a rotation of spikers on the court, it occurred to him that perhaps trust was something that went both ways, and someone had to take the first step.

He dug his heel into the wall behind him, ground his teeth and tapped out a text message. His palm was unpleasantly sweaty. His fingers did not shake. If they loosened their iron grip one bit, his phone would slide right out of his hand, and so would his resolve.

_Hey. This is Kageyama._

He pressed _send_ before he could think about it any longer, tossed the phone down on the bench and went out to do a lap around the gymnasium.

The sun was bright in his eyes. The wind picked up, chased his back, the dust at his sprinting feet. He tried not to think about anything.

 

  

 

 

 

 

_but once you started noticing him, you couldn't stop._

_you never really understood him, his reasons why -_

  

The most frustrating thing about Kunimi Akira, class 4, wing spiker, was how obviously _good_ he was.

Kageyama didn't bother to tell him, because he seemed completely cognizant of the fact. He read a game like a book, even from the bench; and Kageyama, absorbed in trying, _trying_ , to understand the signals and glances and all the nuances that escaped him, would hear quiet yawns from beside him, see Kunimi's dark eyes grow sleepy and heavy-lidded. Yet -

When his turn came to step up, he'd go ahead and do exactly what he needed to do. No more, and no less.

As summer crept up on them, the heat coiled around them like an insistent murmur. It carried promises of glory. It smelled like dry grass and Air Salonpas.

Kageyama, in his reaching, and _striving_ , would sprint up the hills around school, and Kunimi would trail behind on these mandatory runs; break just enough of a sweat so he looked somewhat uncomfortable, and pick up a bottle of water at the first opportunity.

 _you can run faster,_ Kageyama thought. No. _Knew._ Felt like a heartburn, as he leaned over, winded, at the end of the road, and he clutched at his ankles, tipped his chin up and watched Kindaichi skid in right behind.

Minutes later, Kunimi drifted into sight, breathing lightly.

Kageyama straightened, swallowed his frustration, scratchy like sandpaper. He felt the marks his fingers dug into his calves, a subtle bruise. Veined and fraying and winding its angry way up into his gut.

All the way back to the gym, ashes smouldered in the pit of his stomach.

But he did not know what to do with them, and so he held them, held them in until they scorched his palms and charred his throat, until his voice was a ragged rasp, and Kunimi, looking him full in the face on court, was a different kind of burn that chilled like ice.

 

_maybe you still don't._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  

When he went home that weekend, Kunimi was a stranger in a slate-grey cardigan, and he had a coffee in his hand that smelled _chocolatey_ as Kageyama exited the station, walked closer to him, and then Kunimi unwound himself from his reclining repose against the pillar, and in the languid lines of his movement, he was suddenly a little less strange. A little more familiar.

"You really came," Kageyama said, and then immediately wished he could take it back.

Kunimi shot him a look through narrowed eyes.

"I can leave," he said.

"No!" Kageyama snapped, before he realised it'd come out like that, a _snap_ , and he was painfully, acutely conscious in this exact moment that he did not wish Kunimi to stay out of obligation, a sense that his hand had been forced yet again. _dictatorial_.

He took a breath, one that caught in his chest. All jammed up.

"I mean," he said, "you can, if you want to."

Kunimi tilted his head to one side, rested one hand on his hip. The small crease in his brow deepened.

Then he sighed, and it softened; and Kageyama registered the slight rise and fall in his shoulders, his tired exhale.

"You're the one who asked if I wanted to meet," Kunimi said. "I said _okay_. Apparently."

"Yeah," said Kageyama. And then: "I need some food."

 

 

 

As reunions went, it wasn't a complete disaster.

He'd chalk that up as a victory for now.

 

 

 

They stopped by a hole-in-the-wall cafe, and Kageyama got a ham and cheese sandwich to go, because the lone _onigiri_ he'd bought and scarfed down on the _shinkansen_ ride had not been satisfactory, and his stomach was rumbling.

"Are you sure that's enough? We can sit down somewhere... like, a proper lunch place," said Kunimi, with a raised eyebrow.

Round a mouthful of crust and lettuce, Kageyama muttered, "I don't want to sit. I just sat on a bus and a train for a few hours. My legs are sore."

"Sore from sitting," Kunimi repeated. It sounded so ludicrous when he said it.

He didn't laugh, or even smile. His face was a picture of blankness, his gaze, like his voice, perfectly level. The way he held himself looked careless, unaffected; probably _wasn't_ , Kageyama figured. He remembered a boy whose every move had been considered. Who never did anything by accident. Kunimi was probably laughing at him on the inside.

Kageyama regretted everything, for one gloriously awkward moment that stretched into a full minute. He was good at that. Precision. Counting the beats, the seconds, in his head, keeping time.

 _Time._ They stood at a traffic light, and watched the cars stream by. Kunimi took a sip from his paper cup, unhurried, and Kageyama swallowed the last of his sandwich, crumpled the thin paper wrapping in the fist that dropped to his side.

"How long have you been in Sendai?"

The question, asked aloud, seemed abrupt once it tripped forth.

"Since university. I went to Tohoku," Kunimi said, with a yawn. "And I just stayed on. It was easier than moving again."

 _Tohoku._ It was a good school. _Tohoku. Tohoku…_

The name sank into Kageyama's mind, a swirling echo, and the memory it stirred was specific. He said, "We played a practice match with them, once."

"I'm sure you did," said Kunimi. "The volleyball team's not bad."

"You weren't there."

Kunimi glanced at him. Barely.

The light flickered green. As Kunimi turned away, stepped over the kerb and joined the shuffle making its way down the pedestrian crossing, Kageyama thought he caught the slightest roll of his eyes, an irritable sort of twist to his chin.

Kageyama tossed his sandwich wrapper in a bin and matched Kunimi, stride for stride.

He was forever doing this. He was forever catching signals, missing words, and never knowing what to do with any of it. He was better now, maybe, than he was then -

"Why weren't you there?" he asked.

"I didn't continue volleyball."

" _Why?_ "

"This might be news to you," said Kunimi flatly, "but not everyone's world revolved around volleyball."

He paused as they reached the other side of the road, let his gaze linger, full of meaning, on Kageyama's red and white sports jacket and the bulging duffel that hung off his shoulder.

" _Revolves_ ," he corrected, and Kageyama felt a frown tug at the corners of his lips.

"I don't understand," he pressed, insistent. "You were _good_."

"I was also good at math. Economics. History," said Kunimi, and when he said it, it was no boast. Merely a fact.

Kageyama tried to patchwork these threads into a whole that made sense. He failed spectacularly.

"You're a… what do you _do_ , now?"

Kunimi took another slow sip of his coffee. He was really making it last. "I'm a freelance writer."

"That's not math or economics," said Kageyama, feeling somewhat misled.

Kunimi shrugged. "I was good at a lot of things."

Kageyama swallowed again. _And I was only good at one._

Likewise, he had only noticed that one thing that Kunimi was good at, where it touched _him_ directly and the pinpoint parameters of his world drawn up in white tape and a whistle's shrilling, and in truth, it was not that the rest of it hadn't been there for him to see, if he'd cared enough to open his eyes. He had seen the class rankings. Heard Kindaichi's passing remarks.

He hadn't cared enough.

An apology, unsaid, haunted the tip of his tongue like a sepia ghost. He was unused to these faded colours. He thought of breathing it alive.

But like a ghost, that apology had died years ago, and on that sweetening, sweltering afternoon, all of Kageyama's resuscitations sputtered, laid themselves to rest on the dry pavement, and drier soil.

 

_you give it up._

_you try to start again._

 

 

 

* * *

 

  

  

The next time, they sat down.

Kunimi brought his laptop. He looked apologetic, in his mild way.

"I have a deadline, so. If you don't mind. I'll just write for a bit."

"It's fine," said Kageyama.

He ordered a glass of steamed milk. The barista gave him a suitably judgemental look.

He ordered a mocha for Kunimi.

He thought, while counting his change, that it was something of another small victory to be here at all, that they had made it to a _next time_ at all, and the velvet roast scent of coffee and milk settled warm in the pit of his stomach, along with the odd butterflies.

While Kunimi worked, Kageyama plugged in his headphones and watched all the volleyball videos on his phone. Then he watched them again.

They did not disturb each other for the remainder of the afternoon, and Kageyama found it an agreeable enough truce.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

_it's harder and easier than you expected, all at once._

 

 

 

 

 

 

As his best intentions so often did, they took a while to catch up with him.

They were walking down Johzenji-Dori in the daytime. High school had started all over again, and the trees were starting to bud green. The late afternoon sun through the foliage danced mottled light on the pavement. It was altogether a far less impressive sight than Johzenji-Dori on a winter's night, when bare branches, glittering in gold and white, lit up the dark street like so many stars.

But here they were anyway, on this unimpressive afternoon that verged on _too warm_ for spring, and Kunimi had his hands in his pockets.

"I saw you," Kageyama confessed. "At Sendai Station. I was coming back from a friendly in Hong Kong."

Kunimi, with the barest of perceptible motions, tilted his head to look at him. His gaze was steady, sleepy as always - perhaps, with something _flickering_ behind -

"I saw you too," he said.

For a brief, ungainly moment, caught off guard, Kageyama felt his mouth fall open.

Kunimi went on walking like he had not said anything surprising at all, and Kageyama had to drag his feet forward, chase Kunimi's back to catch up with him, for once.

On hindsight, it was obvious. _Well._ Of course. If Kageyama had managed to spot Kunimi in a crowd, there was no chance that Kunimi, of all people, had not spotted him right back. He felt like a bit of an idiot. It crept up on him, all at once, that feeling that used to seize him around Kunimi; he had not felt it in a long time, and it was so uniquely _Kunimi_ to make him feel like an idiot, like this.

But that was then, and now, Kunimi's gaze was passive, the scorn abated. 

It rested on Kageyama a thoughtful moment, slid back towards the tree-lined pathway and all that lay before them. Scattered leaves like years gone by. Drops of daylight, illuminating their footsteps, their deliberations.

"You didn't say hello," Kageyama heard himself blurt out before he could still his indignation.

Kunimi shrugged, a dry half-smile crossing his face, fleeting and gone in a blink. "You looked really focused on something. As usual."

"I did?"

"You should see your face sometimes," Kunimi murmured.

Kageyama, suddenly conscious of the furrow in his brow, blinked and raised a hand to his temple, rubbing small circles absently.

Kunimi stopped at a bench. He sat down, and leaned back. He did not seem to _sit_ , really, so much as give the impression that he had _poured_ himself into a natural place of repose on this bench; he moved like a gliding shadow, and Kageyama felt gangly in comparison. He sat down next to him anyway, a picture of awkwardly angled limbs.

On the opposite side of the pavement, another bench, just like theirs, empty, stared back at them. A cloud passed, smothered the sun for a few seconds and cast the view into cool shade, slivers of brightness winking through as they watched bicyclists pedal by, couples and tourists and teenagers in school uniforms, ties loose round their unbuttoned collars.

Kageyama, lacking in the _poetic_ department, did not spare a thought for benches and all that they signified, or for Kunimi's pause. He thought, he was glad he did not wear a jacket out today. Here under a sprawling tree, they caught the breeze, and the lingering scent of morning dew.

"It's not as bad as it used to be, though. Your face," Kunimi added.

He did not say it like a compliment. But it was matter-of-fact, no insult either, and Kageyama guessed at the half-smile in Kunimi's voice, even if it hadn't found its way back to his lips.

"That's not saying much," Kageyama said. "I used to be pretty bad."

It was easier to say it, now. It had become easier through the years, his admissions, his retrospectives, from the relative safety of distance and _we're not so young, not anymore_.

To hear this raw truth from his own mouth came as no surprise to himself, but Kunimi's eyes widened.

 _Oh,_ thought Kageyama.

Then, _huh._

He was clumsy with words, out loud and inside. Sometimes, he was clumsy with his actions too, he of the pinpoint precision on court. It was frustrating, to say the least. It drove him mad.

Still, he _tried_ , and he grasped at the gap between them, closing, barely and slowly, and it was something of a satisfying realisation that while he had been noticing Kunimi's softening round his fine, paper-cut edges, Kunimi had just started to notice the same of him.

 

 

  

* * *

  

 

 

"Are you still in touch with Kindaichi?" Kageyama asked, two weekends later in the aisles of Lawson's, and this earned a rare _reaction_ , a raising of eyebrows and slightly parted lips, mouth halfway to an open _o_ before Kunimi collected himself, turned it into a sort of faint, dry twist instead. He looked more vulnerable in these in-between moments, under fluorescent lights. The radio cracking in the background, playing an old tune that made Kageyama think of malls and elevator music. _Kikujiro. Summer._ The air-conditioning was cool on his neck.

"Yeah," said Kunimi. "You're not?"

"I'm not," said Kageyama.

"Funny," Kunimi remarked, "because he's in Tokyo. Don't you spend most of your time there?"

"In Tokyo," Kageyama repeated.

He let it sink in.

"Oh," he said. "Okay. What does he do?"

"He works in a bank. Boring," said Kunimi, as he paused to pick up a pack of candy. Almost as an afterthought, he plucked a bottle of Xylitol off the shelf and tossed it over his shoulder to Kageyama, who caught it, unthinking, one handed.

"Here. Your gum."

Kageyama looked down at his fist and uncurled his fingers.

"How did you know?" he asked.

"You've been biting at your lip all day," said Kunimi, without turning. "For God's sake, chew something else before you drive me nuts."

 _The green Xylitol, the Fresh Mint flavour,_ sat snug in the heart of Kageyama's palm, along with the question he'd really wanted to ask, except that it wasn't a question so much as a sort of  _accusation_ , in all its stark naked honesty. _How dare you remember this about me. Things like my favourite brand of gum. It makes me -_

And, lit up inside for one heated moment, he dropped his hand and held on tight to the bottle, and then he looked at Kunimi and promptly fizzled out, like a spark plug yanked from its socket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

  _you wonder if you were ever really friends._  

  

He did not, dared not, call it _anything_ , this tenuous brand of repair work.

They met when Kageyama had more than twenty-four hours to spend in Sendai. There was no regularity to it, for there was no regularity to either the schedule of a freelance writer or a professional sportsman, and sometimes they would meet and not speak a word to each other for hours, because Kunimi lived in an inviolate sanctum when he sat at that table in Ueshima with a mocha standing by his laptop, and Kageyama was equally pleased to lose himself in analysing volleyball plays till the sky turned dark at their backs.

Sometimes, Kunimi would close the lid abruptly on his computer and ask Kageyama about his latest game, about training, about strategy, and then Kageyama would talk till his steamed milk got cold, and he would not realise it because Kunimi had his head propped in one hand, listening intently.

He was a good listener.

And it didn't take Kageyama too long to understand, because this was Kunimi -

It wasn't small talk, or polite conversation; it was a _puzzle_ , and the plays were a distraction for that intelligent mind of his when he got stuck on words.

Sometimes, Kageyama would _try_ and ask about writing, and Kunimi would wave a dismissive hand and say that nothing he worked on would interest Kageyama, unless he had lately developed a taste for _kagura shrine dancing_ or _the merits of teak wood furniture_.

Kageyama had not, and thus they would fall silent.

Sometimes, they did not meet for weeks on end.

 

_perhaps you were never really friends._

 

 

  

* * *

 

 

  

_he never smiled, after all -_

_not for you._  

  

It wasn't that he was unhappy.

He could not be unhappy, thought Kageyama. Because, if he was unhappy, he would not come at all. He was stubborn, in his own way, and Kageyama recognised the same quality in Kunimi, the unmovable will of someone who found it deeply irritating to be told what to do.

Still, he never looked _happy_.

When Kageyama made a perfect toss, when they scored, when the digits flew faster than they could count and the Kitaiichi team high-fived and clapped each other on the shoulders, it was always Kunimi who stood aside.

 _Good block,_ he'd murmur sometimes, from the sidelines of the celebration.

 _Nice kill,_ and he'd look away.

With every match, he said less, looked away more.

Kageyama, who was too busy being perfect to be happy, never thought about it; he was too busy reaching, striving, soaring, being the _best_ , leaving his mark on virgin ground, scorching footprints everywhere he trod, streaking the sky with his name in starlights and floodlights and spotlights, making sure even the cracks in the floorboards were stained with his intentions, all the _best of them_ -

It was with a startling clarity that this moment blurred into focus, here and now.

He stood rooted to the spot on the other side of the net. His head was caught in a half-turn. His breath was caught, in an altogether different way.

Through the crisscrossed lines he'd drawn between them, he saw that smile for the first time, _genuine_ and bright, and there were laugh lines at the corners of those sleepy eyes, and Kageyama forgot to _remember_ , for the space of a heartbeat or several.

When recollection hit, he could barely reconcile the sight with the Kunimi he'd known, and then it was his turn, for once, to look away.

 

_you think, it could have been so different between you._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  

_maybe it could be so different between you._

 

Sometimes, Kageyama would get home on the last train, and with an unspoken compact, the unity of two equally sleepless individuals with messed up body clocks, they would wander into the nearest _izakaya_ and lose themselves in beer and _tempura_ and not talk about their long, long days, their restlessness and irresolution, and an intuitive kind of yearning.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

    

_if you could build this bridge between you,_

_if you could find a new kind of together —_

 

 

 

 

 

 

"I've been wondering."

Kageyama, hands resting in half-curled fists on his lap, turned.

In the window seat, Kunimi sat with his usual slouch, his head tipped sideways where it leaned against the plexiglass. Kunimi always took the window when they rode the bus. They had never discussed it. It was just one of those things.

"Why don't you move to Tokyo, anyway?"

"Why does everybody ask me that?" Kageyama muttered.

"Because your current logistical arrangements are illogical," Kunimi said.

Kageyama sighed. It came out noisier than he intended.

Kunimi, unflappable, simply waited.

"I tried, for a while. Suga-san had a spare room. I stayed with him."

"Oh, the _refreshing_ one," Kunimi murmured, to Kageyama's mystification. He went on.

"I didn't like it."

"Didn't like living with someone?" Kunimi asked.

There was a faint sort of _knowing_ in his voice, like he had picked up on the remnants of his _solitary kingship_ , and Kageyama had to pause, to try his best to shape his answer around this understanding and misunderstanding.

"It wasn't really that," he said. "I just didn't like Tokyo."

"So you moved to Sendai instead," said Kunimi, speculative.

"So I moved to Sendai instead," Kageyama concurred.

Kunimi let out a quiet _hmm_.

The bus stopped, started again with an inhale, exhale, and it carried them through town, down towards the outskirts of the city. In the distance, Kageyama could see the Hirosegawa, shimmering in the setting sun.

"I'm surprised. I thought you were someone who'd want to go somewhere bigger than Miyagi-ken," said Kunimi, eventually.

"I'm not Oikawa-san," Kageyama retorted.

He heard the acidity in his own voice, tart and tangy, saw Kunimi blink. Perhaps, the slightest hint of recoil. Too minute to be catalogued. Too fleeting for any kind of remark.

"You're really not, I guess," Kunimi said, after a pause.

Kageyama let out a breath he didn't know he was holding, held, in turn, Kunimi's steady gaze. Searching. Wondering. Peeling himself away from a shadow that had dogged him for far too long, dogged them both, perhaps, and all of their possibilities and potentials.

"Here is just fine for me," said Kageyama firmly. "As long as I can play. I don't care about all the rest."

Kunimi said nothing for a long while. The bus made two more stops in the space of his silence.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

"I got a job offer," he said, when he finally spoke. "One of the magazines I write for asked if I wanted to come on full-time."

"That's… that's _good_ , right?" Kageyama asked.

"Yeah. The freelance life gets tiring, after a while."

"But," Kageyama started, because there was a _but_ , and Kunimi was frowning lightly.

"I'd have to move to Osaka," said Kunimi.

"Oh," said Kageyama, and then he had too much and nothing more to add.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He said nothing, in the end, because he did not have the right to.

Who was he, after all?

An occasional acquaintance, now - formerly, an _antagonist_ ; formerly, a teammate. Or at least, a poor imitation of one.

They came together, drifted apart, and back together again, over coffee and ramen and walks to nowhere, bus rides that took them part of the way home, and for all that Kageyama had - unconsciously - made a habit of watching Kunimi - committed to memory the understatement of him -

He still slipped through his notice like water from a sieve, and no matter how Kageyama tried to hold on, it felt like he kept getting away from him anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He was _reminded_ , thanks to that conversation, of another old friend, and so the next time he found himself in the city with a pocket of time to spare, he dialled another familiar number and got on a train to Nakameguro. The river lit up at night like a summer festival, lanterns stretching down past the bridge, _sakura_ trees in verdant green. Leaves fluttering down on the balmy breeze, rippling across the water.

"It's been a while, Kageyama!" said Sugawara cheerily, as he emerged from nowhere and greeted Kageyama with a hearty smack on the shoulder that left him winded.

It _had_ been a while. The last time they'd met, it had been winter. There had been a sky blue scarf fluttering at Sugawara's throat, and a paper cup of steaming hot chocolate wrapped tight in his gloved hands like a prize.

Today, he was clad in a white T-shirt and jeans. Today, he swapped his hot drink for chocolate _taiyaki_ from a roadside stall, and he bought an _azuki_ one for Kageyama, and the red bean went down sweet and sticky in the cool of the evening as Sugawara talked of his students, lamented the general nightmare of dealing with _parents_ , blithely told Kageyama he'd shown his latest match on tape to the volleyball club and let them pick apart all his plays, and laughed when Kageyama sputtered.

"Tokyo definitely misses you," said Sugawara, "but it's nice to see you're doing well."

"I'm still near Tokyo," Kageyama murmured.

"And I'm glad you are. You know, Daichi and Asahi are so far away, and I can't help feeling like I'm missing so much of their lives…"

Kageyama's gaze flicked sideways, blunt, curious. He swallowed a mouthful of pancake.

"Do you ever wish they were here with you?" he asked.

Sugawara smiled.

"All the time. But…"

He spread his hands, sudden and expressive, and in the warm, open embrace of his arms here under the city sky, it was like - for one infinite, timeless moment -

He held the Meguro River and all the fallen _sakura_ leaves and the lights, the lanterns and the stars, crimson and white and pale reflections of the moon, and then Kageyama tipped his head back to take in the darkening night and Sugawara's voice rang in his ears, a pleasing echo.

"I think we would all be very different people, if we'd just _stuck together_ , the whole time. And I quite like who I am now. And who they are now," he remarked lightly. "So… who can say?"

 

 

_you think, things will change._

_they've already changed. maybe they never stopped changing._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He made his way to Ueshima one morning, unannounced, unplanned, and saw Kunimi at their usual table.

Kunimi snapped his laptop shut, informed Kageyama in no uncertain terms that his latest assignment was shit, and he'd had enough of it, and did Kageyama want to go to the gymnasium instead to catch the Inter-High Finals, and Kageyama said _yes_ faster than he could formulate the very thought of it.

 _Yes, yes, yes,_ and so they went to Sendai Gymnasium and made their way up to the stands, melting into a crowd of parents, cheer squads and curious public. Kageyama adjusted his sunglasses on the bridge of his nose and stuck close to Kunimi.

The stadium seemed to feel somewhat _smaller_ than he remembered. He tried to rationalise this. Perhaps he had grown bigger.

He had not really grown bigger.

Perhaps his _world_ had grown bigger. That much was true.

Kunimi, resting his head on his forearms as they leaned across the railing, said, "It looks smaller," and Kageyama smiled.

"I was just thinking the same thing," he said.

Kunimi took his eyes off the ongoing game and glanced up at him.

He smiled back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_you're not so young, not anymore._

  

> **_JAPAN MEN'S VOLLEYBALL TEAM STRIKES GOLD  
>  _ ** **_"Prodigy Setter" makes his national debut in second set_ **

Kageyama's only thought, staring at the article in August's _VOLLEYBALL_ magazine, was that he looked positively constipated next to Oikawa in the photo they'd published. He never used to notice things like this. It irritated him.

 _KAGEYAMA!!!! ITS U!!!!!!!!!_ Hinata had texted, in his excitable way, followed by the inevitable string of nonsense emoji (he must have been hungry, because it had definitely contained an _onigiri_ and a chicken drumstick).

_prodigy setter!!!!!!_

_i can read, dumbass._

_whos calling who a dumbass!!!! who nearly failed ENGLISH in highschool_

_you._

_ALSO U SHUT UP_

The kettle beeped. Kageyama tossed his phone on his couch, ignoring the blinking notification light. Hinata and his capslocks could exercise the patience they'd learned.

Between them, it'd always be insults and flying fists, and honestly it'd be _weird_ if that changed, but at the same time, it wasn't quite the same. He could still throw Hinata across the room. Probably. He could still mean it. _Likely._ He could still mean it, with the caveat that he understood, now, that at the end of it he'd always known Hinata would land on his feet, and they would pick themselves up and forge on, and they could call themselves _friends_ for real. _True._

He had been more reckless, and cruel, _unintentional_ , in his blinding and not-so-halcyon sunrise, when he had ached to go places and it had hurt so much he didn't know what to do.

Kageyama leaned back by his kitchen window, blinds scratching his cheek lightly. He watched the light fall across his sink. It gleamed to a polished silver shine.

This morning, there was tea to be had and packing to be finished, mugs to be cleaned, and his pristine apartment would see another week of dust slowly gathering over the countertops, and his bed would stay made, his sheets neat.

Beside his front door, his duffel sat waiting.

For perhaps the first time he could remember, he ached to stay instead.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

By the Hirosegawa River, a leaf fell.

It drifted downwards slowly, coasting on the breeze, an aimless spiral till it brushed sneakered feet, came to rest by the grassy riverbank. It made no noise.

Noiseless, also, the young man with fine cheekbones and a salted caramel melting in his mouth walked on. He was alone today, as he often was.

It did not bother him. He thought of going to the station anyway. For coffee. For a magazine. For other reasons. He was too much of a realist, too much of the _smart one_ to lie to himself, and pretend these _other reasons_ did not exist.

He fingered his phone in his pocket, cast a vague glance at the skyline of Sendai's skyscrapers in the distance.

He did not go to the station, but he came to a stop, after a time.

He took a picture of the river. The sky was cloudy. It felt like it was holding something in, like it was full of rain. It had been a brilliant shade of red that morning.

 

 

 

* * *

 

  

_but you think, now, maybe you understand —_

_it was never about holding on in the first place._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 _Hey,_ typed Kageyama. _Can I take you out tonight?_

_I'm still packing. Also, aren't you in Tokyo?_

_I came back as quickly as I could._

_…does take me out tonight mean you're paying?_

_I think that's what it usually means. I don't know._

_Kageyama, make up your damn mind._

_Okay. Fine. Yes, it does._

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

They went out to an _izakaya_.

It was a night for drinking, and perhaps, not so much talking.

It was a night like any other. They sat in a dimly lit booth, cigarette smoke wafting by from time to time, and Kunimi wrinkled his nose delicately and coughed, and Kageyama looked down at the notches in the table and thought, they had been seated at this exact booth the last time they came.

It was a night to voice complaints about the long journey to Osaka, for Kunimi to wonder how he'd accumulated so much _stuff_ ; it was a night to sear into memory, so Kageyama did, and not once did they let themselves say, _remember when —_

 

_you don't let yourself go there._

_not here, not now, at this fork in the road._

 

As they parted at a shady street corner, Kageyama wondered, head pounding, cheeks flushed, if he should offer to go over. Help to pack, maybe. He'd never been in Kunimi's apartment.

This was his last chance, and a reasonable excuse now presented itself -

He could not say why it was important that he go to Kunimi's apartment.

He could not even say, in the momentary irresolution that seized him, that it was important _at all_ \- no - it was all in his mind - he was drunk - _they_ were drunk -

Not on the beer, but on their _maybes_.

Kunimi, about to turn, hesitated. The hazy lamplight caught rose-pink on his neck.

 

 _Kageyama,  
_ _would you like to -_

 

But what he said instead was _good night_ , and they walked away with their _invitations_ locked up tight in their hearts, fading like summer.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 _well, maybe not today._  

 

 

 

 

 

 

"You really didn't have to come see me off," Kunimi remarked, one hand loosening his scarf.

"You really didn't have to pack so many suitcases," Kageyama retorted. "What do you have in here, _hardcover books_?"

"That's exactly what I have in there," said Kunimi dryly, the curve of his lips almost a _smirk_.

As they passed by the roundabout, Kageyama looked up at the wall clock, declared, _they had time_ , and so they stopped at a vending machine for Kageyama to buy his usual and for Kunimi to roll his eyes at his childlike taste in beverages.

Sunrise had pinked the horizon an hour ago. They stood, now, at the edge of a platform and a new day. Kunimi had his glasses on because one did not wear contact lenses on flights. They were squarish, with black frames, and looked appropriately literary. They flattered his pale complexion and finely cut cheekbones.

It was something of a sharp ache in his chest for Kageyama to realise he had never known Kunimi wore contacts.

He looked up at the dashboard overhead. The airport train was due in three minutes.

"Thanks, Kageyama," said Kunimi suddenly, gazing out across the tracks.

Kageyama's grip tightened round his milk box. "It was nothing."

"Not for coming. Or for carrying my stuff. Just for… for everything, I suppose. Getting back in touch. To be honest, I didn't think there was a chance we'd ever be friends. Or anything."

 _Two minutes, twelve seconds,_ said Kageyama's impeccable sense of timing, and he hated his precision for one exquisitely crystal-clear moment.

Kunimi's voice was mellow, steady. It did not waver.

"I thought we _were_ friends. Back in Kitaiichi," Kageyama admitted. "I didn't know we weren't. Until later. Are we friends, now?"

Kunimi turned to him, one elegant eyebrow arched.

"What do you think we are?" he asked.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

    

_you think, you could have loved him._

  

The most frustrating thing about Kunimi Akira, class _whatever_ , wing spiker, was how obviously good he was -

 _no._ Kageyama grit his teeth, and watched the feint tip over the net. Minimal effort. Kunimi didn't even seem to break a sweat.

It wasn't that.

They'd been _there_ before. He'd always known how good Kunimi was. So did Kunimi himself.

They'd had three years to face each other like this, and the _new_ most frustrating thing was that Kunimi knew _just_ how to use his skill, now, and he had honed his still mind and all his reserves of calm into the finest, deadliest weapons, and it was magnetic and arresting.

It made Kageyama's stomach do funny flip-flops as he kept one watchful eye open from the other side of the net, bent over with his hands on his thighs. His breath came hard, heavy, panting.

He had no time to _think_. Only time enough to watch his new first-year middle blockers _react_ , a second too late. Completely outfoxed.

Light years too early to match a mind like _that_.

And then Kunimi smiled as he landed, light on his heels, and Kageyama could only wonder yet again what it would have been like to have that smile, that weapon by his side.

It sliced so neat and clean that even the wound it left was beautiful.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

_maybe you love him._

 

Kageyama swallowed.

_One minute, two seconds._

"I - we're - " he started, and then the train pulled into the platform.

Kageyama, his throat thick with all that he could not say, let his silence be drowned out by that roaring sound. So familiar, so remote, all at once.

Wordlessly, he reached for a suitcase at the same time as Kunimi, and their fingertips brushed.

Wordlessly, he let his hand linger where it lay.

So did Kunimi, and then the doors opened and it was time.

 

 

 

* * *

 

  

_but that's not how this particular version of the story goes._

 

 

 

 

 

 

They would always have this:

Milk boxes, fresh mint gum and salted caramel, relics of a schoolyard miles and years away, bus rides to and from the gymnasium, down wide-open roads with the mountains on the horizon, and power lines draped across white skies, blue skies, and they had been too busy with their eyes _half-opened, half-closed, respectively_ , to see the storm clouds in their wake.

_Scorched earth, the ashes of what could have been -_

 

 

* * *

 

 

(the doors closed, quietly; a coda.)

 

 

* * *

 

 

And they would always have _this_ , too:

A reddening dawn that heralded the kind of rainfall which _cleansed_ , the Hirosegawa, lined with zelkova trees, street lights in place of floodlights, a table at a coffee shop and an _izakaya_ booth they called _their usual_ , the bench on Johzenji-Dori where they had sat down, one spring day -

This, he could keep infinitely. Sendai, _their_ Sendai, a place they had shared. A place laced with indelible memories of their togetherness, even as the seasons changed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kageyama turned to face forward, the airport train a shrinking sliver in the distance.

 

_who can say?_

 

 

 

_(and no regrets, no regrets.)_

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> for various reasons, this was a very personal fic for me. I hope it resonated with you in some way.
> 
> i love KuniKage a lot, and you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/nahyutas) or [tumblr](http://themorninglark.tumblr.com) to talk about them any time!


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